Who’s on 8? Xploding Boxes

Xploding boxes is a great game that has the right combination of being simple to learn and quick to play with increasing levels to make it one of the most addictive applications I have installed on Windows 8!

It’s the brainchild of Eric Harty in the Rochester, New York, area, and he had this to say about his experiences building the application:

I got my start writing Windows 8 apps this summer when I attended a Windows Developer Camp/Hackathon at the Rochester Institute of Technology. While I was new to the world of Windows 8 (having just installed a preview of the OS a day earlier), I had some experience using C# for desktop apps, and even had wrote a Windows Phone app so the platform was not completely foreign to me.

During the hackathon on that Saturday, I was able to get a fairly decent demonstration of Xploding Boxes put together. While still rough around the edges, it was enough to impress the judges and “win” the event.

Over the following two weeks I polished up the look of the app, as well as adding support for portrait and snapped modes. I also added an in-app purchase so that I could sell access to the complete set of levels from inside the game.

Since Xploding Boxes was released in late October, I have already released one update, and have had the opportunity to write a second game for Windows 8 as well.